The authorities of Georgia released three South Ossetians detained by law enforcement bodies of Georgia. Two of them – a resident of Tskhinval Gennady Pliev and a resident of vil. Didmukha Vadim Tadtaev were abducted from the territory of South Ossetia and charged with illegal carrying and keeping of arms. The third person – citizen of South Ossetia Khatuna Charaeva, resident of Leningor district, was detained in Tbilisi and charged with keeping counterfeit dollars.
As former detainees reported to journalists, they were forced to plead guilty in exchange to the possibility to be released under amnesty. According to Tadtaev, he "went through three trials, served the term and had no hope for a pre-term release." However, yesterday, on 29 March, he was all of a sudden taken from the prison and brought to the boundary line with South Ossetia.
According to Khatuna Charaeva, she was suggested becoming an intelligencer of Georgian special services. "I was proposed to collaborate with the representatives of Georgian special services and report on the events in Leningor. Otherwise, I would have been arrested. I refused to collaborate and hence, the charges were fabricated against me", said Charaeva. The authorities of South Ossetia consider the release of the three citizens as a PR-action before the Geneva discussions on security in South Caucasus. As Deputy Foreign Minister Alan Pliev reported to RES Agency, "in this case, Georgia by showing its "good will" had marked the beginning of the Geneva discussions. It is in the spirit of the Georgian special services – to seize and sentence citizens of South Ossetia on false charges and then release them when it is convenient in order to once again promote their publicity".
